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SC dismisses PIL seeking probe into judge Loya's death

The Supreme Court (SC) today ruled there would be no independent investigation into the circumstances surrounding judge BH Loya's death.

TIMESOFINDIA.COM | Updated: Apr 19, 2018, 17:47 IST

Highlights

The SC today said the plea to investigate the judge's death was “bereft of any truth”, and added that it was an attempt “to malign the judiciary”

The SC said PILs, which were meant to provide succour to the downtrodden and voiceless, have now become an industry to settle scores

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NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court (SC) today ruled there would be no independent investigation into the circumstances surrounding judge BH Loya's death.

The SC today said the
plea to investigate the judge's death was “bereft of any truth”,
+ and added that it was an attempt “to malign the judiciary”. It further said judge Loya died a natural death and there was no doubt about that fact.

The court rapped the petitioners and said it would have been ideal to initiate contempt proceedings against them in the case where political rivalry was brought to court to malign the judiciary.

The top court dismissed a PIL seeking an independent investigation into the death of the judge, who was trying the Sohrabuddin Shaikh fake encounter case, when he passed away in December 2014. Senior BJP leader Amit Shah was an accused in the case; he was eventually acquitted.

Loya died allegedly of cardiac arrest on December 1, 2014 in Nagpur where he had gone to attend the wedding of a colleague's daughter. A batch of pleas, including those filed by Congress leader Tehseen Poonawala and Maharashtra-based B S Lone, was filed in the top court seeking an independent probe into Loya's death in 2014.

The top court said the petitioners' advocates Dushyant Dave, Indira Jaising and Prashant Bhushan launched a frontal attack on the judiciary by urging the SC to disbelieve the three judicial officers who accompanied Loya to Nagpur and stayed with him at a guest house, and who later said the judge died of a heart attack.

A bench of CJI Dipak Misra, Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud said that during the arguments counsel forgot to maintain institutional civility towards SC judges and made wild allegations.

The SC said PILs, which were meant to provide succour to the downtrodden and voiceless, have now become an industry to settle scores political and personal. It said the judiciary is unnecessarily being made to spend precious time looking into such PILs which leads to delay in giving justice in other cases.

Justice Chandrachud said when the Loya matter was brought to the SC, a magazine and a daily newspaper published motivated reports to malign judiciary.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud had on March 16 reserved the judgement on the pleas.

The
Maharashtra government had argued in the apex court
+ that all pleas seeking an independent probe into Loya's death were motivated and aimed at targeting "one individual" in the guise of upholding the rule of law.

It had come down heavily on alleged accusations, bullying and browbeating of judges in the top court by some activist lawyers in the Loya case and said that the judiciary and judicial officers need to be saved from such averments.

Meanwhile, those seeking an independent probe into the matter had referred to the sequence of events to highlight that a fair investigation was needed to rule out any foul play in the death.

The issue of Loya's death had come under spotlight in November last year after media reports quoting his sister fuelled suspicion about the circumstances surrounding it and its link to the Sohrabuddin case. But Loya's son had on January 14 said in Mumbai that his father had died of natural causes.

Several accused, including police personnel, are currently facing trial for their involvement in the alleged fake encounter of Sohrabuddin, his wife Kausar Bi and their associate Tulsiram Prajapati in Gujarat in November 2005. The case was later transferred to CBI and the trial shifted to Mumbai.

Four most senior apex court judges -- Justices J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, M B Lokur and Kurian Joseph -- at a January 12 press conference questioned the manner in which sensitive cases were being allocated. Loya's case was one they mentioned.

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